Daily chart

Danger of death!

ON FEBRUARY 15th DA14, an asteroid 45 metres across, will sail past the Earth at 7.8km a second (4.9 miles a second). At just 27,700km away, it is well within the range of communication satellites. It will be the closest encounter on record with an asteroid this big. In 1908 an asteroid estimated to be around 100 metres in diameter destroyed 2,000 km² of forest in Siberia. Thankfully, such events are rare. NASA has identified 9,600 "near-Earth objects" since 1995, but just 861 with a diameter of 1km or more. The greatest threat to Earth currently is the 130-metre wide 2009 FD; but it has just a 1-in-526 chance of hitting the planet, and not until March 29th 2185. More prosaic things are far more dangerous. According to data from America's National Safety Council, 27 people died in 2008 in America from contact with dogs (a one in 11m chance of death). The chart below compares the odds of dying in any given year from choking, cycling, being struck by lightning or stung by a bee.

Correction: We originally identified asteroid AG5 as posing the greatest threat to the planet. But as keen asteroid-watchers know, that rock was given the all-clear by NASA in December 2012. The text was corrected on February 20th.

Pandemic is more likely to kill than firearms. The 1918 flu pandemic killed 3-6% of populations. Despite growing antibiotic resistance for complications like pneumonia, assume the next bad flu pandemic kills " only " 1% of the population. The probability of occurence of the pandemic is at least 1% in any year.

So the expected odds of death from a severe pandemic are 10,000:1. Per year, every year, probably more.

Plus all the illness of those who do not die.

The policy implications are straightforward. Pandemics should be prevented at the source, by the public veterinary and human health authorities. It could start in any country, so all countries have to have the capacity to detect and control contagion before it gets out of hand.

Where on your charts are other assaults such as stabbings, being beaten to death, strangliong someone, and other causes? I saw Lou Dobbs on The Factor Thursday night and he stated that more people in the United Srares in 2011 were murders by a hammer than all the long gun murders combined,

Shouldn't this be odds AGAINST dying, instead of odds of dying?
Odds of dying from a certain event is defined as Pr(dying from event)/(1-Pr(dying from event); i.e. probability of dying from the event divided by the probability of not dying from the event. The chart labeled as "odds of dying" would then suggest that you are much more likely to die from an asteroid impact than from heart disease - i.e. Pr(dying from asteroid impact)/(1-Pr(dying from asteroid impact) >> Pr(dying from heart disease)/(1-Pr(dying from heart disease).

This is not a good way to expose a problem with firearms. The numbers seem a lot less significant this way compared to the total number of people that die due to firearms – which is essentially totally needless.
There also was no distinction as to the age of affected people.
And most importantly, such a statistics is a little consolation to families losing their children in gun violence.

In contrast, it would be more informative to show a chart how a large number of guns is NOT making people safer in the US, i.e. comparing risk of dying from firearms in countries with limited number of guns and the relative risk in USA (1:25 000). I’d bet that in most countries the risk is far lower, perhaps 10x lower, maybe comparable that of “forces of nature”. And the difference would be even more significant if the data are broken down according to age groups.

To those content with these numbers I am paraphrasing one reader's comment: Since the risk of dying by fire is low, can we close down fire departments?

I don't think anyone's saying that gun violence and accidents aren't a problem. We do try to prevent people from things that are equally dangerous, like freezing to death (homeless shelters) and bike accidents (helmets, bike lanes).

Obviously guns are a cultural phenomenon in the US. In Poland there is a requirement to pass a psychological exam (among other things) in order to buy a gun, and there's very few people asking for more access to guns. There probably are ways of buying a gun illegally, but I don't know of any, and with the exception of military, police and some security guards having a gun is a rather obvious sign you're up to no good.

If we outlaw guns, then only outlaws will have guns. Makes it much easier to recognize outlaws.

Just a reminder: we are not immortal - why is everyone frightened of death. If you relate death rates with age then the results are very different. After 70 the death rate increases dramatically and we should not be so surprised and after 80 = is it worth the pain, loneliness and fear?